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Sound Design

The songs are well-known, but the dialog is very funny. Chris Egan's orchestrations are crafted not only to enhance the pop songs, but also beautifully assist the transition from dialog to song and b10/19/2007 11:56 AM Eastern

The intention is to pick up and amplify tap dancing from anywhere on the stage, without risk of feedback or interaction with other live sources. The usual solution to this problem is to run wireless mics down the legs of each actor to the dancing feet. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the costumes, this is mostly not an option. The “Tap Floor” allows the choreography to take the actors anywhere around the stage and still be effectively miked. With some experimentation, we discovered what spacing of the pickups worked best and how to mount them in the floor most effectively. The audio from the pickups goes individually into a 96-channel console. The mixer then splits the floor into zones, and applies compression and gating. The stereo output of this mixer feeds a stereo analog input on the D5T, where the audio is finally EQ'd and routed to the sound system.—Paul Arditti

The songs are well-known, but the dialog is very funny. Chris Egan's orchestrations are crafted not only to enhance the pop songs, but also beautifully assist the transition from dialog to song and back to dialog. My challenge has been to give the sound design a theme, enabling the audience to follow the story with crisp, sensible dialog before moving into the big numbers. The Cadac chain for the input stage gives a clear, defined and beautiful dynamic. I am using the M16 splits into the D16s, routing half into the J-Type — an all-Cadac signal path into the Opus system.—Richard Brooker